US Mobile Industry

I was given a Samsung i8910 to try out for a week. I really liked it! I filmed this review right before we left for the N97 24/7 Across the USA Tour, and I felt guilty posting a Samsung review while on tour for Nokia. See how hard my life is?

And here’s a demo video filmed with the i8910. This was filmed before the big AMR update, so the device may get better frame rates now.

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Tonight I had the privilege of attending an event hosted by Nokia in San Francisco. I had extensive hands-on time with the Nokia N97, the Samsung i8910, the T-Mobile MyTouch, and the Palm Pre. These are all very nice devices.

The June Tusnami has begun.

talking with tnkgrl, featuring tnkgrl of tnkgrl Mobile and matthew bennett of usmobileindustry.com. In this episode we talk about the HTC Touch Pro/Fuze, the Nokia E75, the upcoming June Tsunami and a MOBILETRON 0.1 wrapup.

Filmed at Cafe Flore in San Francisco on a Nokia N95.

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The Ripdev team recently released Icy, an alternative to popular package manager Cydia.  After playing around with it, and updating it to 1.1, I’m finally ready to write a few things about it.  Here you go:

Pros:

• Fast.  Icy loads up really fast and installs packages really fast…see the video below.
• Simple UI.  A “Recent Packages” link was just added.
• Borrows sources from Cydia.
• Cool install animation.
• Landscape mode!  Perfect for late night app-surfing in bed.
• Free

Cons:

• Not all repositories from Cydia sync with Icy.
• Missing packages during installation, which is related to the issue above.  When I tried to install a Dr. House theme it claimed Winterboard was missing.
• No queue feature.  I really like queues…and the Q.

Icy isn’t quite there yet, but I’m very excited about it.  I’m looking forward to future updates.

The N97 is finally available for pre-order.  The cost is $699 in the US, and you’ll get a free BH-703 Bluetooth headset with it if you pre-order.  For that price, you can buy an N95 and an E71.  

Will you be pre-ordering the N97?  I’m on the fence.  I’ve been lusting after this device since October of last year, but that’s a big chunk of chedder.  I already own the almost-perfect N95-NAM, and I feel like the main thing I’d be gaining is the qwerty keyboard.  The built-in 32GB of storage would also be a big selling point for me, as I shoot a lot of video on my devices.

The 5MP camera may not be that much of an upgrade from my N95.  The lens is a little different, and more “fish-eyed”.  The N97’s camera will likely start-up, focus, and jump shot-to-shot faster than my N95.  The N97’s video editor is much waeker than the N95-NAM.  The N97 supports cut, merge, and title creation only, while the N95 has a full timeline based editor.  Is there any device with a better video editor than the N95-NAM?  Please let me know, because I don’t know of any.

What else would I gain?  S60V5 is touch of course, and the N97 will be context aware widgets to the platform.  I’m not totally sold on the touch interface; I’ve been using it on my 5800 XpressMusic.  Switching between the onboard keyboard is the most annoying part, so the physical keyboard of the N97 should be a nice fix.

Leave a comment, and let us know.  Are you gonna pre-order the N97 for $699?  Should I, so I can review it for you?

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One of the biggest complaints against S60 5th Edition is the lack of software. Sure most of the S60 3rd Ed software will run, some quite well. Be we’re looking for software that uses the touch interface and the full screen size, not some half-screen barely works sometimes warmed over port.

Answering the call for more software, the excellent site Tube5800.com has stepped up with their list of 100 games for the 5800, all with free trials! I had no idea there were this many games out for the 5800. Extra thanks to Tube5800 for doing the excellent digging!

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tlkng wth tnkgrl #9 from US Mobile Industry on Vimeo.

Here we talk about the devices from CTIA. The Nokia N86, OmniaHD, N97, Palm Pre, and more! Filmed on Easter in San Francisco, California on a Nokia N95.

Check out tnkgrl Mobile now! You can find the uncensored, unedited audio version here.

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I’ve been completly ignoring the T-Mobile Sidekick forever.  It’s a qwerty dumbphone, with a few nice features on T-Mob, which is not as good as at&t in San Francisco, so my personal interest has been very low.

What does it take to get me interested?  The next Sidekick, the LX will include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter right out of the box.  I’m really excited that T-Mobile is embracing webservices, services outside of their own company.

One of the things that annoys me the most about branded phones is how badly the carriers ruin the firmware.  They often remove the built-in software form the manufacturer, and install branded services so they can charge you a monthly rate.  The branded firmwares also often make it difficult for 3rd party apps to access the internet or stay running in the background.  This causes apps like IM or Social apps to be a giant FAIL because they just can’t stay connected.

I think inclusion of Social Networks, specifically the four big-boys included on the Sidekick LX, will be a HUGE tipping point for device consummers.  The carriers are viewing SMS and MMS as the big drivers for the next five years, in terms of network usage.  I think we’re going to see consummers, starting with younger folks, DEMANDING these four services on devices. As the networks all migrate towards 3G and beyond, and smartphone features are pushed down into “dumber” devices, it’s the ease of use and the services that will determine the winners.

Oh yeah!  Besides these Social Networks, the LX looks like a nice device!  It’s got 3G, 3.2MP autofocus camera, video recording with uploading to Social Services, A2DP, 3.2″ screen at 854 x 480, MicroSDHC storage, IM support for the popular networks, and Exchange support in the near future.

Teens are so lucky now-a-days! Here’s a link to the press release.

This is a guest post by MobileDan.  Dan lives in NY, and does most of his computing on a mobile Nokia device.  This article is in responce to an earlier post of mine, E71x Comes to at&t, Nokia Fans Run Like Hell.

I would like to add my thoughts… If I may Matthew…

I would like to point out, as I gathered, and I may be missing something…

Howard Forums has a running thread, and all that I was able to get out of it was from a user “sr1329″ who stated

“The one thing FP2 brings is a whole new access point management system that can switch from 3G to a known Wi-FI access point if you get close to one. Where it fails is that when you leave the range of that access point it isn’t very good about switching you back to 3G. It will just say connection dropped or something like that. The next time you access data it will ask you again for the access point you want to use. “

Let’s do a comparison for $hits and giggles…

Mobile user “A” purchases a brand new E71x from AT&T with a 2 year contract for $99 for the actual unit and the required data plan of $30 per month your total cost(leaving voice out because we’re assuming that Mobile user “A” and “B” will be getting the same voice plan) would be $819.99 ($99.99 for the unit, PLUS the additional $720 for just data alone, )

Compared to

Mobile user “B” (the smart and savvy shopper who purchased their unit “unlocked” from, say… Dell.com for $340)

Mobile user “B” purchases the unit, unlocked for $340, at a much higher price then user “A” of $240.01 but aside from the FP 2 I can’t see why there is THAT much of a difference, when the ends justify the means… Let’s examine further… Shall we?

Mobile user “B” now has to purchase a rate plan (we’re assuming the same rate plan as user “A” here, so the difference is the data plan…) user “B” can purchase the $15 data plan, for the same unlimited data as user “A” above for a total cost over the 2 years of the contract of $700 ($340 for the unit, PLUS the additional $360 for just the data alone…)

Wait! Did user “A” pay $720 over the 2 years and user “B” only paid $360 FOR THE SAME DATA? another example of why it pays to be a smart shopper… they give it to you cheap in the front, but you take it in the rear!

AT&T DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW THS!

Come on people, When will you wake up? Sure, What’s a little $119.99 over 2 years when you can get FP2 on your E71?

Well, what’s to say that Nokia can’t do an OTA (Over The Air) update?

plus, you won’t have the AT&T branding of, disabled Nokia keys, un-movable (or deletable) menu items…

The device was made in such a way for a reason…

If you want it cheap, and as a knock-off, (which is how I view branded devices)

Then please buy this unit

Sincerely yours…

MobileDan

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A neat little app called iPhoneTool was just released on Cydia, courtesy of iSpazio.  Because of its generic name, I almost skipped it as I was browsing through the new releases.  Anyway, this app allows you to automate Airplane Mode on your iPhone.  Why do that?  Well, maybe because you don’t want ex-girlfriends calling at 2am.  Maybe because you don’t need your cousin asking you to come over at midnight to fix his DVR so he can record episodes of NCIS.

I won’t write any instructions.  It’s very straight forward to use.  Screenies: